A Long Weekend in Hoi An: Offbeat

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Three days lets you keep the 2-day weekend plan ’s Old Town day and craft-village day, and slot in a full My Son Sanctuary day trip between them, the one thing near Hoi An you genuinely can’t see anywhere else in Vietnam. If you want to add Da Nang’s Golden Bridge on top of this, see the 4-day itinerary .

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Day 1: the Old Town, on foot and by lantern light

Start at the Japanese Covered Bridge (Chua Cau), reopened in 2024 after a restoration some locals think looks a little too new, then walk the heritage core, including one of the Chinese assembly halls and a merchant house like Tan Ky. Walking the streets is free; the roughly 120,000 VND coupon booklet only matters if you plan to go inside several buildings.

For lunch, find the early Morning Market rather than the more touristy Central Market. In the afternoon, get fitted at one of Hoi An’s roughly 400 tailor shops, insisting on a test item and a modest deposit rather than a rushed same-day order. In the evening, take a rowboat lantern float on the Thu Bon; any night works, not just the monthly Full Moon Lantern Festival on the 14th lunar day.

Day 2: My Son Sanctuary, and the craters still in the ground

Leave early for My Son, about an hour southwest, to beat both the heat and the tour buses. These red-brick Cham Hindu temple ruins date from the 4th to 13th centuries and were UNESCO-listed in 1999, the same year as Hoi An Ancient Town. Much of the site was destroyed during a single week of US bombing in August 1969, and the bomb craters are still visible beside the standing structures.

Back in Hoi An by early afternoon, cycle out to Tra Que herb village, farmed with riverweed fertiliser for roughly 400 years, or take the calm version of the Cam Thanh basket boat ride if you’d rather be on the water than a bicycle. Have com ga, Hoi An’s turmeric chicken rice, for dinner.

Day 3: across the river to the craft villages

Take a short ferry or bike ride over the Thu Bon to Cam Kim island, then on to the Thanh Ha pottery village and the Kim Bong carpentry village, both still working mostly for local buyers. Stop at Reaching Out (131 Tran Phu), a deaf-run fair-trade crafts shop where orders are taken by handwritten note.

In the afternoon, head to An Bang Beach for a few hours before your last dinner in town; cao lau, the signature noodle, is worth one more round before you leave.

Day Focus Don’t skip
1 Old Town heritage + tailor + lantern boat the Morning Market over the Central Market
2 My Son Sanctuary + Tra Que or basket boat the early departure, before heat and crowds
3 Cam Kim island + craft villages + An Bang the calm basket-boat slot from day 2, if you skipped it

For where to sleep across these three nights, see where to stay in Hoi An , and for the food specifics behind days 1-3, see where to eat in Hoi An . The full Hoi An day trips guide covers My Son and Da Nang in more depth if you want to swap one in for the other.

For the two UNESCO sites this itinerary covers, see UNESCO’s listing for Hoi An Ancient Town and UNESCO’s listing for My Son Sanctuary . The only official visa portal is evisa.gov.vn .

If you can only add one day to the weekend plan, make it My Son. It’s the one piece of this itinerary that isn’t replaceable with something else in town.